Sunday, 1 December 2013

Pénélope -liberation of a woman alone

In this
song, the “Penelope” mainly in Brassens’ mind is not the virtuous wife of
Ulysses in the legend but the middle class wife, trapped by a rigid social code
in a marriage gone stale.Brassens suspects however that she might, on the quiet, get private relief through the sensual flights of imagination, often involuntary, which
must occur to her.These are able
to give her an exhilarating freedom and offer her consolation away from the
control of anyone else.The theme is
much the same as that in “Fernande” and as it is the female version, perhaps the great singer Barbara can best convey its undertones.

Penelope

Toi, l'épouse modèle, le grillon du foyer(2),

Toi, qui n'as point d'accrocs dans ta rob' de mariée,

Toi, l'intraitable Pénélope,

En suivant ton petit bonhomme de bonheur(3),

Ne berces-tu jamais en tout bien tout honneur

De jolies pensées interlopes(4)?

De jolies pensées interlopes...

Derrière tes rideaux, dans ton juste milieu(5),

En attendant l'retour d'un Ulyss' de banlieue,

Penchée sur tes travaux de toile(6),

Les soirs de vague à l'âme et de mélancolie

N'as tu jamais en rêve au ciel d'un autre lit

Compté de nouvelles étoiles(7)?

Compté de nouvelles étoiles...

N'as-tu jamais encore appelé de tes voeux

L'amourette qui passe, qui vous prend aux cheveux ?

Qui vous conte des bagatelles,

Qui met la marguerite au jardin potager(8),

La pomme défendue aux branches du verger,

Et le désordre à vos dentelles?

Et le désordre à vos dentelles...

N'as-tu jamais souhaité de revoir en chemin

Cet ange, ce démon, qui, son arc à la main,

Décoche des flèches malignes,

Qui rend leur chair de femme aux plus froides statues,

Les bascul' de leur socle, bouscule leur vertu,

Arrache leur feuille de vigne(9)?

Arrache leur feuille de vigne...

N'aie crainte que le Ciel ne t'en tienne rigueur,

Il n'y a vraiment pas là de quoi fouetter un cœur(10)

Qui bat la campagne et galope (10)!

C'est la faute commune et le péché véniel(11),

C'est la face cachée de la lune de miel(12)

Et la rançon de Pénélope,

Et la rançon de Pénélope.

You the
model wife, domestic paragon,

You who
have no snags at all in your bridal gown

You, the
intractable Penelope,

At your
little fellow’s beck and call

Don’t you
ever cradle in all honesty

Some
pretty thoughts that just sneak in

Some
pretty thoughts that just sneak in

Behind
your curtains in your so correct world,

Waiting
for suburban Ulysses’ return,

While engrossed
in your needlework,

On
evenings of emptiness and brooding

Have you
ever, in dreams, on top a different bed

Counted
stars quite novel to you?

Counted
stars quite novel to you?

Have you never
called out to the object of

Your desires,
who chances by, grabs you by the hair?

Who tells you some sweet nothings,

Who puts
the wild daisy in the kitchen garden,

Puts the
forbidden fruit ontothe orchard
boughs

And gets your lace garments all tangled up

And gets your lace garments all tangled up.

Have you
never wished to bump into again

That
angel, that demon, who his bow in hand,

Fires some
cunning arrows

Who restores their woman's flesh to coldest statues

Rocks them
from their pedestal, topples their virtue,

Snatches off their figleaf’s cover?

Snatches off their figleaf’s cover?

Have no
fear that heaven might hold you to account

There’s really nothing over which to lash a heart

That is led astray and goes wild

It’s a common failing, merely venial sin

It’s the
hidden side of the honeyed moon

And the ransom of Penelope

And
the ransom of Penelope.

Georges Brassens - 1960 - Le mécréant

Translation notes

1)Pénélope – In
greek mythology, Penelope is the wife of Odyseus (Ulysses in the Latin legend).
After his
victory in Troy, Ulysses’s journey home was constantly delayed and other men
assuming his death, courted Penelope.She resisted all pressure and remained faithful to Ulysses.She has become the symbol of the
ever-faithful wife.

2)Grillon du foyer –The tiny
chimney cricket lived in the ash of the wide chimneys of olden timesits chirping was believed to be a sign of
good luck and happiness in that household. The perfect wife in the poem is the
representation of the same.

3)En
suivant ton petit bonhomme de bonheur,This phrase tells us that she was happy to
take a subservient role letting her husband take the lead.

4)De jolies
pensées interlopes? – Interlope comes from the English word
« interloper”, which is some-one who enters secretly, illicitly and is
unwelcome

5)Juste milieu.There could be two meanings for milieu.Firstly it could mean her sense of moderation.I have chosen a second meaning of « le
milieu social ».The setting is behind the discreetly closed curtains of a middle class
suburban home.

6)Penchée sur tes travaux de toile – In
the 1930s and 1940s, conscientious wives would spend a lot of time sewing,
repairing and making clothes and furnishings.The relevance to Penelope is that she made her sewing an excuse for
refusing the proposals of her many suitors, saying that she had first to
complete the sewing othe shroud she was making for her elderly father-in- law-
and she was careful to make very slow progress

7)Compté de nouvelles étoiles?Compter les étoiles – In
the dictionary, le Littré, we read that
« Compter les étoiles » means to waste your time on an unprodutive
remote task. In this poem, the stars were on
the canopy over the bed that she shared with her husband and her conventional
sexual routine was performed lying on her back looking up, counting the stars
and paying little attention to what was happening to her down below.

8)Qui met la marguerite au
jardin potager, - In his song « La non-demande en
mariage », Brassens once again associates the daisy and domestic life: A
aucun prix moi je ne veux
Effeuiller dans le pot-au-feu la marguerite. The daisy
is the symbol of love and the vegetable garden is the symbol of domesticity and
the home. The context of both poems is
extramarital relationship.

9)Arrache
leur feuille de vigne? – In English we talk of the fig-leaves
and in French of the vine-leaves, which were superimposed on works of art out
of prudery, when the artist had depicted sexual parts.

10)Here we
have a contraction of two expressions (a): "il n'y a pas de quoi fouetter
un chat" which means that it is something of no great importance and (b) "un
esprit qui bat la campagne" which means a mind that gets
misled by unreasonable arguments.

11)C'est la faute commune et le
péché véniel, - These are minor sins as defined in the Catholic Church. According to Catholic doctrine, people who die while burdened with mortal sin will be sent
to burn forever in Hell. However, Brassens advises his Penelope, that her temptation would not be a mortal sin. The creation of naughty fantasies in the mind, with no intention of actual deeds with another
person are classed by the Church as « Sins of the mind ». and these are normally treated as venial sins, which implies excusable
sins.

12)C'est la face cachée de la lune de miel – I am
not sure whether, in English, we have any picture of an actual moon when we
talk about the honeymoon.In French
there seems to be an awareness of moon + honey, so that Brassens can make this
image of the visible side of the moon and the dark side of the moon, representing
our public lives and the private lives of our thoughts and imaginings. It
cannot surprise us that Brassens, the great libertarian is making the case, in
this song, that prisoners of circumstance, symbolised by Penelope, should be allowed
to soar totally free in their personal space.

Footnote - from the newspapers

In the week when I was translating
this poem, a survey was published, which stated that couples in relationships had less sex than couples used to
have 20 years ago.The Times columnist,
Janice Turner, in her article on November 28th 2013, commented on
these findings, and in her last paragraph suggested an explanation of private
sex that seemed to be relevant to this poem.She wrote:

Modern couples are
exhausted, working on their laptops and smart phones, claims the study. Or
maybe with their shiny devices, high-speed broadband and websites for the most
specialised peccadillos, they have sex, just on their own.A Times photo of Janice Turner